


Mourning Star.

by the17thtearoom



Series: Miraculous: Darker Origins. [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Gen, Original Akuma, Original Akuma - Mourning Star, Tragedy, Well mostly happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-16 20:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21042671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the17thtearoom/pseuds/the17thtearoom
Summary: Part of the job when fighting akuma victims is remembering they’re just that; victims. None of them were this more so than Mourning Star.All it takes is one very, very bad day...





	1. Day One.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a blog post I wrote some months ago. The idea won't leave me alone, so I've decided to expand it into a complete story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mourning Star, and Elise Bisset, belong to me, as does the Darker Origins universe. Artwork by Goggles_McGee! Go and give her lots of love <3
> 
> Come and find me on tumblr: [the17thtearoom](https://the17thtearoom.tumblr.com/)!

* * *

“_AKUMA ALERT. AKUMA ALERT. PLEASE RETREAT TO A SAFE PLACE UNTIL THE THREAT IS NEUTRALISED._”

The alarm tears the night apart. An akuma, _another one_, as has become standard over the last four or so years, attacking Paris, the City of Love and more recently, _Heroes_.

The city's eponymous hero, tired to begin with, groans into her pillow and tries to ignore Tikki tugging at her hair.

"Come on Marinette!" she chirps. "Someone out there needs Ladybug!"

"Ladybug needs sleep," she mumbles, but as the alarm continues to blare she screws up all her best quality Inner Strength and forces herself from bed. After an unenthusiastic transformation, she clambers gracelessly onto her balcony and takes a cursory look around, but so far she can't see anything.

Across the city, lights are coming on in peoples houses but she sees very few leaving them to take shelter in an Akuma Bunker; she can't blame them. Given the choice herself, the only place she would be right now is in her bed.

“_AKUMA ALERT. AKUMA ALERT. PLEASE RETREAT TO A SAFE PLACE UNTIL THE THREAT IS NEUTRALISED._”

She checks for reports on her yoyo and sees that the akuma is causing trouble not far from the hospital, so with one last sigh she sets off in its direction. Along the way she meets Chat Noir, bounding along with a level of energy that's frankly indecent at this time in the morning.

"Ladybug!" he exclaims. "Nice night for it, eh?" Summer is slowly coming to a close; they're in its dying gasps now, so she supposes he's not wrong. Once winter hits these fights are going to take a lot more out of her.

"The akuma's at -"

"The hospital," he finishes, tone losing its good humour at once. "I know."

The first sign that something is very wrong is the smell of burning concrete. The second is the rapidly encroaching light coming from the hospital's direction. With most of Paris still asleep, it's distinctly out of place.

"What's going on?" Ladybug mutters. Chat Noir offers no reply.

Next comes the first quake; something causes the Earth to move, the air to tingle and crack with energy, a great seismic shift, and the heroes look at each other.

"That's not good," Chat Noir mutters. "Come on, My Lady."

They approach the scene at a cautious pace, keeping to the shadows. The closer they get the brighter the light does, until they're only around the corner and Ladybug is beginning to squint.

"What do you think it -"

A shrieking wail cuts her off, making her gasp and clamp her hands over her ears. It rips through the air so loudly she can feel it, so loudly it hurts.

They huddle together until the wail tapers off, and she dares to crack her eyes open. Chat's fake ears have gone flat to his head and he's grimacing in pain.

"Okay," he says, "officially worried now. What the hell was that?"

They never get the time to speculate. His question is answered almost immediately.

The light dims away almost completely and the searing heat fades. Marinette opens her eyes. A white-haired woman stands before them, staring. Or, she thinks she's staring. She doesn't know if the woman can actually see - her eyes have been replaced by two orbs that resemble tiny suns - but she does seem to know that she and Chat Noir are there.

When the akuma doesn't move to attack, which is odd in itself, she asks, "Who are you?" hoping for something that will help.

The akuma opens her mouth and slowly, softly, speaking in a voice that echoes and refracts like many shards of glass, says, "I am... Morning Star."

Marinette nods. "Okay, Morning Star, what's wrong?"

"Where... is he?"

"Where is who, Morning Star?"

"Where is - my son?" _Oh no._

"I - Your son?" Chat asks. "I don't - I'm sorry, ma'am, we haven't seen him. Where was he last?" But Marinette is eyeing the hospital in the distance with an increasingly queasy feeling.

"Chat," she mutters. Morning Star's attack had begun at the hospital.

"If you tell us what he looks like we'd be happy to help you find him!" he continues, oblivious to Marinette's fears. _Oh no_, she thinks again.

Morning Star stares at him for a long moment, then says, "He is only small. J-Jacques. My Jacques. My little boy." _Oh, no no no_. Marinette understands what has happened with a sudden, dread-filled clarity, and she could _cry_, but Chat is still trying to help because he hasn't realised.

"There's a lot of little Jacques in Paris, ma'am," he says, keeping his tone as light as he can because even though he doesn't know _what's_ wrong, he knows that _something_ is.

"Chat," she says again. "She came from the hospital. She's looking for her son. Her name is _Mourning_ Star." And then she sees everything click into place in Chat's eyes and his breath leaves him in one long woosh.

"No," he says. "Oh no." My sentiments exactly, she thinks, looking back to _Mourning Star_, who is still watching them, awaiting something.

"Where is he?" she asks again. Her voice is haunting, echoing. "Where is... my baby?" There's a locket around her neck that an increasingly panicked Marinette thinks may be her akumatized object, if she could only get hold of it somehow. But how could she trick her? Or distract her?

Stalling for time, Chat Noir asks in a strained tone, "Can you tell us your civilian name, Mourning Star?" When her eye-orbs flare up he adds hurriedly, "So we can help you find - find Jacques!" He chokes on this last part, this awful little lie, but the light dims again and they are able to look at her.

"E-Elise," she says.

He nods. "Alright, Elise -"

"But you are Chat Noir." She turns her head to Marinette. "And you are Ladybug. Hawkmoth will help me find Jacques, if I - if I give him your Miraculous. He has lost someone as well."

Fury fires through Marinette all at once and she snaps, "Hawkmoth is _lying_ to you, Elise. He's using you -"

"_I am Mourning Star_." The light flares up again, blinding and burning, and once more the heroes are left unable to see. They go stumbling back, away from the immense heat as Mourning Star shrieks, "_I want my son back! You will not keep me from him!" _Mourning Star sweeps her arm out in one sharp movement and for a split second, Marinette is confused -

Until her feet lift up from the ground - She's flying - Chat Noir is screaming her name - Her world explodes into a dazzling shower of stars because -

She's hit - Impacted against something. A wall, she realises in the final moment before she loses consciousness.

* * *

When next she opens her eyes there's a roof over her head and sunlight streaming in through a nearby window, intermingled with -

Marinette narrows her eyes, sight still bleary. It's smoke, she realises, and her eyes slide shut again. _It's smoke_. They snap back open. Smoke - Fire - _Mourning Star_. Sucking in a jagged breath, she bolts upright and the thin blanket that had been covering her falls away.

"C-Chat?" she calls, throat dry and sandpaper-y. But no one answers. She looks around the cramped office space and realises that she is alone, which means Chat Noir is fighting Mourning Star alone.

She stumbles to her feet and over to the window, seeking out her friend, but he's nowhere in sight. The street outside is decimated, she realises, her stomach dropping. Devoid of life and strewn with wrecked emergency service vehicles. Gaping, she realises that the whole world has gone mute.

"Chat?" she repeats, but quietly and to herself; she can tell that she's alone in this building. She tracks her partner from her yoyo and, pausing only to drink from the bottled water he had left behind for her, she sets off in pursuit of the fight.

They're at the TV station.

She has to force herself not to consider the morality of fighting this woman. Elise is a victim, she thinks, and all that can save her is stopping her. She passes an abandoned news van, crushing a stray mic underfoot, before she reaches the scene. The windows on one side of the building are shattered, decorating the ground she sprints over to reach her partner before something happens. (She doesn't even _entertain_ the thought that in her absence something already might have.)

It's the sole spark of relief she's felt all day when she reaches the lobby and Chat Noir is right in front of her. He looks worse for wear and unspeakably tired, but he grins a feral grin when he sees her.

"Nice of you to join me, Bugaboo!" he says, just as Mourning Star bursts through a wall. They're blinded by the light and run for shelter. "You've been out for seven hours," he says in answer to the question on the tip of her tongue. "Woke up for a while at around six-ish but other than that..."

"Thank you for saving me, Kitty," she says.

His answering smile is wan. "Anything for my Ladybug." They don't address the slight, underlying tension that the danger of their situation has given rise to; the kiss they had shared at the start of the summer, in the light of the Eiffel Tower, stood atop the Arch de Triumph. She's glad of it. She wouldn't know what to say.

They're hiding in a stairwell and can hear Mourning Star storming closer and closer - light beams through the gap between the door and the floor - and she passes them by. They breathe dual sighs of relief.

"We need a plan, Ladybug," he says, "and we need one _fast_."

* * *

So they make a plan. And it fails. They make another. That one fails too.

They try to corner her but she just blows the corner up. Chat tries to grab her, hold her still while Ladybug takes the locket from around her neck. Mourning Star sets herself alight and Chat has to throw her from his grasp, yelling, the ends of his hair sizzling. These two attempts alone take hours to coordinate and after Chat narrowly escapes being burnt to a crisp, the sun is well across the sky, the evening beginning to tease at them.

She beats them back, they withstand it, they get better at predicting her attacks and moves and responding in kind, but her power level is completely sporadic and more than once she just _erupts_. Ladybug and Chat Noir sprint down a high street and they know she's on their tail, but if they can only outrun her long enough to find new shelter, they can _think_, they can _plan_, they can -

"_Ladybug! Chat Noir!"_ She skids to a stop and whips her head around, wondering who the hell is calling out to them in the middle of this mess. "_Over here!"_ A shop owner is frantically waving them over and they dash for her, if only to usher her back to safety before Mourning Star sees her. "Come here, there's a route to a shelter through the back!"

"Ma'am, thank you for trying to help, but you can't put yourself in danger like this," Chat says as they reach her.

"Yes, and we can't go to the shelters either," Marinette adds, trying not to wince as the stitch in her side makes itself known. "We can't stop fighting, or risk leading Mourning Star to a place filled with civilians."

"You need a break," she says firmly, leading them inside. "Just come to the shelter for a while and get yourselves together. Maybe make a plan." She catches the wary look the heroes exchange and adds, after a reluctant pause, "We won't try to make you stay."

Ladybug looks at Chat Noir, who shrugs; couldn't hurt. It's not like Paris is going to get any more smashed up in their absence... Or that their presence is doing much to help.

"We'll rest for a few minutes," she says finally. "Thank you, ma'am. We'll think of something! Come up with a new - a new plan." Because all the other plans have been _so_ successful.

The woman, Marie, leads them through the back of her shop to the alley behind it, and sure enough they come right to an Akuma Shelter entrance. She opens the doors, calls inside, "I'm back! But be ready; Ladybug and Chat Noir are with me." The hum of conversation dies a quick and brutal death, and Marie stands back from the suddenly silent passageway to allow the heroes inside, smiling thinly.

They go down into the bunker and are met with the stares of about fifty people, crammed in together and scared out of their minds. The sight makes Marinette lose her breath.

"Ladybug? Chat Noir? Are you going to stop Mourning Star?" a little boy huddled up to his mother asks. Marinette stares at the two of them, suddenly seeing another two people in their place. When she's silent, Chat Noir answers.

"We're going to do our best, little guy. Until then, you just stay nice and safe in here, okay?" His voice is beginning to strain, so Marinette takes him by the arm, gives the silent room a smile, and drags him to a quiet corner.

"I think we need more help," she says. "I'm trying to think of who would be helpful right now."

"Rena Rouge," Chat says immediately. "She could create some sort of... calming illusion?"

"And Carapace," she agrees. "Queen Bee too. We might need to paralyse her."

"So the whole team," he summarises, grimacing. "We need the Miraculous and their wielders. _And_ to get them all without Mourning Star stopping us."

"Obviously one of us will have to keep her distracted. I'll -"

"I'll do it, Ladybug," he says, an odd shine in his eyes. "I want to - I'd just feel better if I were keeping an eye on her personally." There's something in his voice that she can't identify but she agrees nonetheless.

"Okay," Ladybug says loudly, for the benefit of the crowd, who follow her movements as Chat Noir joins her. "I'll round up the troops. You concentrate on Mourning Star, alright Kitty?"

He nods, mouth set in a grim line. "Ready when you are, My Lady."

* * *

She runs to Master Fu, sheltering in his own home with no apparent regard for the disaster zone Paris has become outside, and collects the Miraculous she needs.

"Be careful, Marinette," he stresses as he hands them over, closing one of his ancient hands over her own black-gloved one. "Mourning Star - She is unlike any akuma I have ever seen."

"I'll do my best," she promises, making to stand before he holds her still, his face grave.

"You need to do _better_ than your best, Marinette. You need to _win_. Failure here is not an option." She feels another weight pile onto her shoulders, but she bears it and forces herself to her feet. Outside, Paris is falling; she needs to stop it.

"We're going to win, Master Fu," she says, resolute. "We're going to save Elise."

She goes to find Alya first. Her friend is sheltering in the park, conveniently with her second target, Nino, as she so often is these days.

"_Ladybug!"_ the girl cries upon seeing her. She bolts from her hiding place and Nino follows with more hesitance, glancing around half crouched. "What's going on? Mourning Star - It's crazy!"

"I know, Alya, which is why I'm here. We've never faced a threat like this before, so I'm sorry to ask but -"

"We'll do it!" she bursts. "Where are the Miraculous?"

"Alya, chill," Nino says. "But _what_, Ladybug?"

She sighs. "This is a big one, you can probably tell. We need the help, but I wouldn't begrudge either of you saying no."

Alya shakes her head. "No way, we're with you one hundred percent Ladybug," she says, and Nino nods, looking no less apprehensive but resolute.

"_Thank you_," she says, handing them over, and as the two transform she adds, "I'm bringing Queen Bee in as well. Just follow the sounds of fighting and you should find Chat Noir. _And hurry!_ He won't be able to hold out for much longer." Mourning Star has already decimated the police forces who tried to help; the heroes are completely alone.

She knows exactly where to find Chloe, of course. The problem would be getting to her; Andre Bourgeois had a special Akuma Bunker installed in Le Grande Paris years ago, filled to bursting with as much state of the art tech as he could pay the workers to cram in. That included a camera linking them to the outside world.

Marinette landed in the hotel through a hole in the otherwise pristine roof and sprinted down several floors until she found the lowest level, the basement, and the fortified doors that were keeping her from the Bee wielder.

"Chloe Bourgeois? _Are you in there?"_ she calls.

For a few seconds nothing happens, as in the distance she hears the battle raging on. Then the heavy steel doors begin clicking and whirring as they open, and Chloe comes striding out to her, Andre shouting after her, "Chloe, you - you get back in here right now!" But she doesn't, and her father makes no move to come out and force her to safety himself. She presses a button on the wall and the doors begin closing again, and just before they do Marinette sees the white, scared faces of her butler Jean and Sabrina peering out.

Then it's just Marinette and Chloe, who is very pale faced herself as she listens to the destruction happening above. Apparently the shelter was sound proof as well.

"Chloe, thank you for coming out here. We need Queen Bee's help, if you're willing," Marinette says, holding out the hair comb.

The blonde, still shaken, crosses her arms and gives an unconvincing, "_Hmph!_ W-Well it's about time you came to me." She takes the comb with a hand that's shaking and slides it into her hair. (Wonky, but Marinette's not going to tell her that.) "Lets get this fight _finished_."

With the final hero called to action, she turns to rejoin the fight with Queen Bee hot on her heels.

* * *

Marinette feels like she's going to collapse, but - but she can't. She knows she can't. Paris, and Elise, depend on her. She must do better than her best.

Even so, she has been fighting, non-stop, all day. Her head aches, her limbs feel numb, and in amongst the chaos she wonders if her parents are okay or if Mourning Star has leveled the bakery. She laughs but it comes out more like a cry. Even with their bolstered numbers they're losing, because Mourning Star is gaining in power constantly whereas the wielders are seriously flagging.

"What are we supposed to do?" Rena Rouge asks. "None of my illusions are working on her! She just barges right through them."

"The only thing she wants is her son," Carapace points out. "Maybe you could -"

"_No I can't,_" she snaps, cutting across him. "I will _not_ conjure up an image of her dead son, Carapace!" Shamed, he ducks his head and drops out of the conversation.

A boom in the distance shakes the room and they all stop, tensed up, _waiting, waiting..._

No collapse happens, and they're safe to stay where they are for now. They've already lost two shelters because Mourning Star managed to find them, they won't lose this one. It's a sturdy sort of place, a bank built out of strong marble and limestone, but it won't last for long if they're not careful.

Queen Bee sighs. "I can't hit her with a paralyse if I can't get close enough -"

"_None_ of us can get close enough," Rena Rouge snaps. "That's half of the problem! She's too hot!"

"She's _scalding_," Queen Bee says. "I'm afraid that even if I did manage to get my stinger to her, she'd just melt it down."

"We need to get her to cool it," Carapace says. "I mean - Well _yeah_. She needs to cool it, somehow."

"The somehow part is the problem," Marinette sighs, rubbing at her forehead before she looks over at Chat Noir. "Are you coming to help? Or are you spending the rest of the night at the window?"

"She's gone quiet," he says, rather than answer. He's been watching for Mourning Star for an hour solid now, as the moon gleams over the city. "The last time I heard anything out of her was ten minutes ago."

"It's about time," Queen Bee mumbles.

"That's odd." Marinette stands to join him, and they peer around the square outside together, ignoring the chunks of Le Saint-Chapelle that spilled across the city as it went down beneath a blood red sky. "I wonder where she is."

"Maybe she's calming down!" Carapace suggests, though his tone isn't too hopeful. "Maybe if we went and found her now, we'd be able to get the locket from her."

"You said that when she first stopped screaming," Rena points out. "_And_ after she collapsed Le Saint-Chapelle."

"Well what do _you_ have?" he asks, crossing his arms. Rena doesn't answer, just looks down at the floor and begins drawing patterns on the tiles. The Miraculous team are losing, and to do that means not only to fail Paris, but to fail Elise. They cannot let that happen.

As the clock face at the front of the bank hall ticks closer to midnight, the Miraculous team hunker down and prepare for a long night. Outside, the destruction rages on. Any parent would tear the Earth in two if it meant saving their child, Marinette thinks. The problem is, this parent actually _could_. But they'd get Mourning Star soon. They _had_ to. There was no way this attack could go on for much longer.

Was there?

Outside, the Eiffel Tower is blown apart and its pieces shatter across the city. The last light has gone out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are incredibly appreciated <3


	2. Day Two.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She crosses over into denial there on the roadside, and it feels like the ghost of a summer's breeze. Like the dull snapping of bones beneath fifty tonnes of concrete.

By the fourth hour of the second day, it really seems as though they're going to die. Ladybug and Chat Noir shelter together in a private nook in the bank, and when she sees his eyes, they're shining in a way that makes her uneasy. It's like he's mentally checked out, or no. More accurately, it's like the person that he is underneath the mask is gone, and all that's left is Chat Noir, the hero. The thought makes her anxious, but no more than she already is.

It's hours before any of them dare to emerge, creeping out into the morning's dim light. Mourning Star has become subdued, at least for the moment, and the heroes take this time to assess the damage and think of a new plan.

"Pegase could create a portal," Carapace suggests, kicking a chunk of burnt wood with the toe of his boot. "Open it up right behind her, snatch the locket before she can attack." Marinette nods and makes a mental note to fetch his Miraculous, if Master Fu's house is still there.

"Viperion," Queen Bee adds. "I shouldn't need to explain why." Get the Snake too, she tells herself, hoping that in her exhaustion she doesn't misplace her mental notepad, which does happen. She should at least have no trouble finding Luka, if he hasn't run to a shelter; only hours before Mourning Star's attack had begun she had been with him, listening to his newest piece on the balcony of her home. A sweet summer breeze had flavoured the air and...

It's odd to think about now, because summer breezes and gentle guitars feel worlds away.

"What about Roi Singe and Ryuko?" Rena Rouge asks.

"I want to keep them as back up in case - In case something else happens," she says, but she won't go into specifics. She won't give voice to the possibility that one of them might die. (But not more than one. That especially is impossible.)

"How are you going to track down their wielders in all of -" Chat Noir gestures vaguely around. "This?"

"I'll do it," she says in one long release of breath. "I'll - I don't know. Something." Check all the nearby shelters? Hope they went to Francois-Dupont for shelter and became stuck there? (_Hope?_ Is she _hoping_ that her friends are trapped now?) There's no chance they'll still be in their homes, is there -

_She could message them!_ she realises in a moment of clarity. Marinette had saved all of her heroes' numbers to her yoyo not long ago. _Thank Tikki_.

So another hero is brought in; Pegase. She puts the word out to Luka as well, hoping for Viperion's added might, but he never responds, so now she has to make time to chase him up, which is annoying.

"No, nobody's se-seen Luka," Max says, hands trembling as he swaps out his glasses for the Horse Miraculous. "But we weren't sheltering with the Couffaines." Ladybug is silent as he transforms, thinking, thinking...

Pegase has been called upon in desperation, and even then they’re barely hanging on.

* * *

Mourning Star hurls everything she has at the interlocking force fields Carapace produces but with the others keeping her busy she can't gather the energy needed to destroy them, so the force fields keep her hemmed in, unable to attack beyond the space they have confined her to.

Inside the dome, Chat Noir, Queen Bee and Rena Rouge do their best to hold back Mourning Star's tides, but the effort is wasted. Noble, yes, but futile. They have her confined now but she's still more powerful than all of them put together. Until Ladybug returns with Pegase -

A blue portal opens into the dome and the two heroes emerge as if on cue.

"Pegase!" Carapace shouts, delighted. "You're a sight for sore eyes, man!" The Horse wielder is watching Mourning Star with a certain greenness about the gills. The akuma is so consumed by the other heroes that she doesn't notice their arrival, which is for the best.

"Okay," Marinette says. "So like we discussed -"

"Open the portal behind her," he finishes. "I-I'm ready when you are." He doesn't look _or_ sound it, but she trusts him to do what's needed.

With no further fanfare they get on with the plan, Chat Noir and company keeping Mourning Star nice and distracted, while Pegase opens up a neat little portal. She nods to him and steps through, appearing right behind the white-haired akuma, who even from a distance radiates a heat that makes her grimace. She's holding her breath, reaching out her arms ever so slowly.

Rena Rouge creates a new illusion; a gently flowing stream, running right across the ground between them. Nice and gently does it, calm as a stream, tranquil, careful... Mourning Star stares at the dream, taken in and her shoulders are relaxing more, and more. Marinette thinks this might actually work.

The akuma is muttering to herself. "The river... Do you remember... The jam sandwiches."

She's falling into a memory, one of Elise's memories to be exact, getting lost in it, calm and comfortable, which is just how they need her. That's it. She's reaching her hands to the clasp of the locket at the back of Mourning Star's neck, leaning back from the waves of heat that roll off her. Rena Rouge, seeing how close she is, doubles down on the illusion and creates some trees, a few birds flitting about on the branches.

"Yes," Mourning Star mutters. "Yes, it was sunny that - that day. Jacques?"

Easy does it, slow and steady wins - _What did she just say?_

"Jacques? Do you - Where -" Marinette freezes, her fingers skimming the back of Mourning Star's neck. _Oh no_. There's a sudden swell of heat, forcing Marinette back several steps. No, no no. "_Jacques?"_

She only has a moment to catch Chat Noir's panicked eye before Mourning Star shrieks and Marinette is thrown backwards. She _smacks_ against Carapace's force field and her vision blacks out for just a second. When her eyes open again she sees that the other heroes were all sent reeling too. The stream is gone, and so are the trees and the birds. Rena Rouge isn't moving, and Carapace's force fields are gone as he leans over her.

Mourning Star is raging again, too bright to set eyes on. Pegase has ushered himself and Queen Bee, the only hero close enough, she supposes, back to a safe distance, but Chat Noir is facing the akuma, grimacing and seemingly getting ready to square off.

"Elise!" he shouts. "Please, that's enough! I'm sorry about Jacques, but this has gone on for long enough!"

"_You CANNOT understand my pain,_" she shrieks, her voice echoing off the empty buildings and smoking streets. "_You will NEVER lose what I have lost._"

"I - I know," he says, holding out a placating hand as he starts to approach her. "But all of this won't bring him back. I'm sorry, and I'm sorry for what Hawkmoth has done to you -"

"_Enough, Cat,_" she spits, lunging for him. He is caught up in her grip and struggles against it, until she bodily throws him and this time his landing isn't cushioned by Carapace's force fields, oh no, this time there's nothing there to catch him and he goes careening through one of the last in tact windows in all of Paris, and _then_ through the wall behind it.

"_Chat!"_ Marinette cries, springing for him. She finds him laid amidst a pile of drywall and fibre glass, groaning, and falls to his side. "Chat, can you hear me? Are you okay?" They've both been thrown through a wall or two in their time, but that was something else, and when he doesn't reply immediately she fears the worst.

Then, a fake ear twitches and two luminous green eyes open. "Wow, Bugaboo, if I didn't know better I'd say you're worried about me." His voice is weak and groaning, but if he has the energy to be a dumbass he's probably okay.

When he is able to stand again and they return to the square, Mourning Star is vanished.

* * *

The walls of the Louvre cave inwards.

It's a sonic boom that takes them out, so quick and so sudden that Ladybug is stood staring at the gallery's remains for a solid five seconds before she even realises what's just happened.

"The Louvre's gone," Queen Bee says into her earpiece. "Do you hear me? She just took out the Louvre."

"Yeah, I know," Chat Noir says grimly. "I was almost in it." It's then that she realises he's stood alone at the edge of the wreckage, staring down at the pile of scrap, metal and mortar that used to be home to some of the words greatest art. Weirdly, she wonders about how the Mona Lisa is doing and the thought makes her laugh, half-hysterical.

"Ladybug?" Chat Noir asks. "You okay?"

"Fine," she says quickly, shaking her head as if to clear it. "I need to find Viperion. Will you guys be okay handling Mourning Star until then?"

"Sure," Queen Bee says, swinging down to join Chat Noir's side. "Leave it to me, Ladybug."

It's that creeping dread, that pit in your stomach, that restlessness bursting in all of your nerve endings; the feeling that something has gone horribly wrong. That something has happened to Luka. She knows it without knowing it, yet she pursues him all the same, because she has to _know_, to see for herself, that Luka is dead.

And she does.

She finds the body in the apartments across from the park. It's covered in day-old dust and rubble and she knows he's been dead for a while. He never got her text.

She feels weirdly detached and calm in a way that later she will find repulsive, looking down at it. Him. _The body_. Maybe it's that she knows the Cure will bring him back (won't it?) or maybe it's just that she's too numb to everything now, but beyond the pit in her stomach widening into a great, gaping chasm, Marinette doesn't react to the sight of her friend's lifeless body, sprawled on the ground.

He won't remember having died when he wakes up, she knows. (Doesn't she?) He won't remember any of this at all.

Marinette will. Marinette will remember it for the rest of her life.

There's another sonic boom in the distance, and she feels the ground shake, but she ignores it, and stares at Luka. Bits of ceiling fall to cover him. Marinette doesn't move. Neither does Luka, but he won't, will he?

"_Run, Ladybug!"_ Rena Rouge screams, but why?

"Rena?" she asks, putting a hand to her ear piece, not taking her eyes from Luka. "What's wrong?"

"_Get out! Get out of there!"_

Metal screaming, concrete falling, Rena Rouge crying out, and Ladybug's limbs turn to lead as the first of the building collapses in front of her, and Luka is gone from sight. There's a great thundering crash and more of the building collapses to her right, then her left - _"Ladybug, run!" _Then she jumps forwards as a piece caves to the ground right where she had been stood -

And that's when it sinks in.

_"Get out Ladybug!" _Rena Rouge is still screaming as she takes off running on legs she can't feel. Her lungs ache, her _teeth_ hurt, the air is airless and vibrating -

More goes down in front, half to the side, more behind still -

Marinette skids to a stop as the last glimpse of daylight is covered - Then it's dark, nothing but dark and dust and a momentary lapse into panic, and Rena Rouge is still screaming, but she can't make out what she's saying now -

A flash of sudden blue splits the black, followed by a dome - green, and it takes her a second to realise that it's Carapace with Pegase, who've opened a portal and thrown up a forcefield around her.

Carapace's arm is straining under the immense pressure but he manages a grin and says, "Come on, Ladybug, this ain't it."

Pegase helps her to her feet - when had she fallen? - and pulls her through the portal to safety, Carapace close behind, and in the split second before it closes again she hears the crunch of concrete converging on itself. A few pieces have fallen through it onto the grass, where they stand.

The change in pace stuns her, the sudden fresh air leaves her breathless and she goes down to one knee. Innocuous bits of rubble stare her in the face and Nino catches her by the shoulder before she topples - Nino?

The detransformed hero stares at her worriedly. "You're not looking so hot, LB," he says. She stares at him, chest heaving, and her eyes fall to the exhausted kwami on the ground at his side. Wayzz has seen better days. They all have.

"We can't stay out here," Pegase says, and it's only then that she actually looks around. They're in the park, she realises, looking at a big pile of rubble where the apartments used to be. That made sense; it was the apartments she had just been standing in. "Carapace -" Pegase is staring at Nino with wide eyes, but he recovers quickly enough. "Get yourself to a shelter before you get hurt."

"Find Rena," he says. "She was screaming."

"We will," Ladybug promises, pushing herself unsteadily to her feet at last. A piece of rubble falls out of her hair. "Thank you, Carapace." He nods, and just like that they're down one hero. No, strike _one_.

She looks back at the apartments where Luka died. They're down _two_.

They find Rena pinned underneath a fallen chunk of archway mere metres from the apartments. She's scared and dusty but not critically hurt; her right leg is what's caught, and the marble is too much for one person to manage, however miraculous. Marinette and Pegase shift it, and Rena Rouge squirms free.

"Ladybug!" she cries, settling back against a wall. "You got out!"

"Pegase and Carapace saved me," she says, "which I -"

"Where is he?" she asks, looking around frantically. "Carapace, I don't see him!"

"He had to drop out," Pegase explains, shifting nervously. "Holding up the apartments exhausted his transformation. He's - He's okay though! We sent him to a shelter." Nodding, Rena collapses back, boneless, and closes her eyes. "So now what?" he asks of Marinette, who finishes her mental assessment of Rena before she answers.

"We have to find Mourning Star," she says. "I think dropping the apartments exhausted her too; can you hear any more screaming?" No, in fact the world was once more silent. "If we can get to her now, while she's less powerful, there's a chance we could stop her."

"S-Sounds like a plan," Pegase says. Rena, on the ground, nods along and makes to stand when Marinette stills her.

"Your leg is broken," she says gently. "The suit spared you most of the damage but I can see that there's enough to take you out of the fight as well."

"I -"

"Detransform and get to the nearest shelter," she insists. "_Please_, Rena, for your own sake." All the while she thinks to herself that now she has to track down Ryuko and Roi Singe too, which is more time that she doesn't have to waste.

It's Alya Cesaire that Ladybug and Pegase help hobble to a shelter, and Rena Rouge is out of the fight. Viperion will just have to stay where he is, Ladybug thinks.

She crosses over into denial there on the roadside, and it feels like the ghost of a summer's breeze. Like the dull snapping of bones beneath fifty tonnes of concrete.

* * *

Tsurugi Kagami is ever the consummate professional. She slips from her mother's fortified shelter mere minutes after receiving the summons from Ladybug and meets her to collect the Dragon Miraculous. Longg regards her with a stark solemnity after he materialises, and in the seconds before she transforms, Kagami laments that her small red friend is forgoing his ordinary chirpiness.

Ryuko joins the fight two hours after Carapace and Rena Rouge leave it, and nothing changes. She's one of the best; the best trained, the best disciplined, the best tempered. Her power is incredibly versatile to the point of being overkill. Mourning Star doesn't care about versatility, or discipline, or temperament. She cares about finding Jaques, and so all of Ryuko's immense strength means nothing.

She sets the Dragon's water boiling, her wind dispersing across the city with a sonic boom. There's still the lightning she can try, but no one is quite sure how best to use it yet and they don't wish to squander her last remaining attack.

"I need to stop," she pants after her air attack fails. "I need - I need to _rest_."

Roi Singe is harder to find. Initially Kim ignores his summons. Crouched in a shelter with his parents and fifty other crying Parisians, he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket and knows on instinct that it's Ladybug requesting aid. He doesn't answer, not at first anyway, and by the time he gives in to his conscious and makes his way outside, the rest of the bunker is asleep.

Out in the choking night air, thick with dust, he replies to Ladybug, finally, and tells her, "I'm ready." She's there in two minutes with the Monkey Miraculous in hand.

When Roi Singe joins the battle, it is ten minutes to midnight on the second day, and Mourning Star reigns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments of all kinds are greatly appreciated, my lovelies <3


	3. Day Three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That roar brings her up short, snaps her from her frenzy. Marinette is breathing like she's sprinted a marathon and she thinks she's in pain, but there's no one point to it so she can't be sure. She's radiating heat and on the ground, Mourning Star is smoking, crying out in that awful, echoing voice, and Marinette's heart drops to her stomach.

The dawn of the third day is grey and silent and desolate. No birds sing in the trees, because the trees are all burnt and the birds are all gone. No shops fronts come to life, and no one is there to mourn over the ashes of the Louvre. The world itself has ended, or so it feels. It may as well have done. It _looks_ like it has.

Then, from amidst the smoke and rubble and the smell of death, life shines through. Several lives shine through. Ladybug's chosen heroes - those who remain - creep out from their temporary shelter and take in the monochrome wasteland Paris has become.

"This isn't working," Chat Noir says. "We need to think of something else."

"Like what?" Ladybug asks. He can't answer, because he doesn't have one.

She doesn't tell anyone about finding Luka's body. They're going to beat Mourning Star, she will cast the Cure and Luka will be restored. No one else ever has to know about what happened to him. It will be her burden alone to carry.

Turning to Chat Noir she says, "We just need to think outside the box. All of our usual plans have failed but something has to work. We could - I don't know. Ryuko still has Lightning Dragon left -"

"Are you suggesting that we electrocute her?" he asks sharply.

"_No_. I mean - I don't know, possibly, if everything else fails..." He scoffs and shakes his head, and fire shoots through her. "So tell me your plan, Chat."

"Roi Singe could use Uproar -"

"He already has. She incinerated the doll before she could touch it."

"So we'll do it again!" he bursts. "Distract her, have Roi Singe use Uproar when she's not looking and take the locket."

Marinette sighs. "I guess it could work. Are you okay?" He doesn't reply, but she can't blame him. "Tikki - or, you know, the spirit of the Ladybug - she's starting to get restless."

He looks at her, eyebrows raised. "Oh yeah?"

"What about - I mean can you feel the Black Cat in your head?"

One of his fake ears twitches. "Kind of. Maybe. I don't know. There's _something_ there."

Smiling weakly, she says, "I'm glad it's not just me."

He shoots her a reproachful look. "It's never just you, LB. I'm always here." Are you? she wants to ask. Looking at him now, there seems to be less and less of the boy she thinks she knows and trusts. His eyes seem to have dimmed over the last day or so.

"My mother died, you know," he says out of nowhere, a million miles away, and before she can say anything he pushes himself to his feet and walks away. In the distance, a sonic scream makes her mind start pulling itself apart.

* * *

Roi Singe casts Uproar for a second time and receives a Baby Anabelle doll. His jaw clenches as he looks down at it, but he still nods to Ladybug, perched and waiting up above, then starts waving it in Mourning Star's direction.

"Come on," he mutters. "Just come after the damn thing." It takes a minute, but Kim is desperate; they all are. They need this to work.

And it does, at first.

Mourning Star's eyes land on Baby Anabelle and from a distance, he sees her lips forming the word Jacques, then she bolts for him. At the same time, Ladybug swings down towards her, one hand outstretched -

The akuma looks up at Marinette, her lips curl into a snarl that rips from her throat, otherworldly, like a thousand souls crammed into one person, and they crash together, rolling to the ground. Mourning Star sets herself on fire. Ladybug doesn't care, doesn't feel it, just tries to force her hand towards the locket, though Mourning Star's scalding grip is resisting her.

Someone is screaming but it's not her and it's not the akuma either. Ladybug's skin is searing, her eyes and throat and nostrils burning and it doesn't matter._ Get the locket._ She pins Mourning Star with her knees and strains, _strains_ -

The akuma is screeching again and Ladybug's ear drums burst and _she's reaching -_

Someone latches onto her, claws dig into her shoulders and they rip her away from the flaming woman, shouting and screaming, desperately resisting -

_She's so close, she's right fucking there, goddamn it._

"_Ladybug, stop!"_ Chat Noir, angry and frantic, holding onto her so tightly that she can't move. "_You're_ hurt, _Elise_ is hurt - Just stop!"

"That's not Elise!"

"_YES SHE IS!"_

That roar, and only that, brings her up short, snaps her from her frenzy. She's breathing like she's sprinted a marathon and she's - she thinks she's in pain, but there's no one point to it so she can't be sure. Her hair is singed and she can smell it, just, through her burnt nostrils. She's radiating heat and on the ground, Mourning Star is smoking, crying out in that awful, echoing voice, and Marinette's heart drops to her stomach.

"Oh god..."

"Stop, Ladybug," Chat Noir says in her ear, and she nods frantically.

"I have - _I have now."_

He doesn't let go of her; she stays wrapped tight in his arms, panting, dragging each breath into her punished lungs like it's a job. His forehead touches the crown of her hair, and he breathes out, low and shaking.

* * *

It takes the combined the efforts of every hero Paris has left to corner her, but it’s Chat Noir who finishes it, in the end. They corner Mourning Star in the square where the Eiffel Tower used to be, only because the inevitable is happening; even the immense grief that powered her is beginning to tire as well. Chat Noir is the one to approach her, slow and quiet, doing what Chat Noir always does for the victims of akumas: provide comfort. Marinette's seen him do this before; sitting with victims while they wait for an ambulance, chatting away to them, making them laugh or even just crack a smile. It's what he does. It's what he's good at. There are no smiles to be seen here.

Mourning Star is too tired to lash out at him and so he manages to walk right up to her, to hold her hands in his and look into the now dimly glowing orbs that are her eyes, and speak. (Ladybug lets him go, but she’s right at his back, ready to move if Mourning Star hurts him.)

"Ms Bisset - Elise - If you can hear me in there, I'd like for you to know that I - I am no stranger to grief either." He's stammering. "I lost my mother only a few years ago, you see, and I'm familiar with the pain you're in, even if I can't understand it completely or pretend to know the immensity of what you're going through." Mourning Star stares out at him, with the visage of a lost child that makes even Marinette's exhausted heart ache. It's like the woman inside the akuma is hearing Chat speak and reaching out in hope of rescue.

Marinette had hoped to provide it, but she hadn't thought of _this_.

"No parent should lose a child, and I _cannot_ begin to tell you how s-sorry I am. I want you to know that you are not alone; my heart is with yours."

Mourning Star stares, and _stares_, and then she opens her mouth and Marinette tenses to withstand another sonic boom - but none comes. Instead, it's a wail. An ordinary _human_ wail. The wail of a mother whose child is dead.

All of a sudden a wave of a new kind of horror washes over the remaining wielders and to her left, Ryuko is crying openly, her tears carving clean tracks down her grimy face. Roi Singe is looking away from the spectacle, his face contorted and gritting his teeth while Queen Bee holds her stomach and gapes, like she is trying to cry her feelings out but they _just won't come_.

Chat Noir has let go of Mourning Star's hands to instead take her in his arms and he holds her tight, painfully tight as she cries out in human voice, cries for her boy, her Jacques, who is gone, and for the part of herself she was before Hawkmoth. His shoulders heave with emotion and Marinette knows he is crying. She is too.

But she is also Ladybug, and it is her duty to protect those unable to protect themselves, so she gathers herself together as best she can, and approaches the huddled duo on the ground. Neither take notice of her.

"I'm sorry," Chat sobs into Mourning Star's shoulder. "I'm so - _s-sorry_, Ms Bisset. I'm sorry for what's happened to you. _I'm sorry._" Marinette is to Chat's back now; if Mourning Star opened her eyes she would be spotted right away. "But you're _loved_ though," Chat continues. "_So_ loved, and - and strong too, and while the pain might never leave, I _promise_ that one day - one day it won't hurt quite as badly as it does now."

Mourning Star is _listening,_ hearing what Chat Noir is saying, and as he has her in his arms, safe and yielding, Ladybug reaches for Mourning Star's neck and snags the locket hanging there. She breaks it and watches with a hatred that burns sudden and bright as a purple butterfly flutters out. She catches it in a sharp motion, she purifies it, and then all that's left to do, as the visage of Mourning Star vanishes, replaced with a thin waif of a woman, is for her to gather her remaining strength to release the butterfly; cast the Miraculous Cure.

She can't do it. The Cure is a bridge too far. Marinette sways on the spot and tries - she _tries_ to say the words but she can't even force them out. Chat Noir, still wrapped up in Ms Bisset, doesn't notice, but Queen Bee and Ryuko are soon at her side.

"Ladybug?" the Dragon asks. "Can you do it?" She tries to shake her head, no, but she can't do _that_ either. All of her strength is vanished and before she knows what's happening, Queen Bee is the only thing holding her up, because her legs are giving out.

"Do you want us to help you?" the Bee asks, and that's how you know it's serious, Marinette thinks to herself, half-delirious. When Chloe Bourgeois is concerned, _everyone_ should be.

She can't cast the Cure. She's too tired. She thinks of Luka, who needs her, because right now he's _dead_. She can feel the butterfly humming around frantically inside the yoyo, trying to escape.

"I can't do it," she manages. "I'm not - I'm not strong enough." The two wielders exchange an alarmed look and Chat Noir, a collapsed Elise Bisset in his arms, finally looks up.

"What's going on?" he asks. "Ladybug? Cast the Cure."

"She can't do it, _Chat_," Queen Bee spits. "She's _exhausted_."

Kagami - Ryuko - whoever she is - takes Marinette's hand in her own. "You say the words, Ladybug. I'll do the heavy lifting."

And indeed she does. Ryuko lifts Marinette's hand into the air, releasing the cleansed butterfly as she draws in a breath and mutters, "Miraculous Ladybug."

The three of them watch the thing fly away into the sky, vanishing from sight. A small shock of ladybugs have spread across the city and fixed the place up, but the hero who controls them is too tired to make a complete job of it, so some walls remain collapsed, some craters are left behind. People who had, seconds ago, been going cold find their eyes blinking open, their heartbeats restored. They stumble to their feet, dazed beyond words, and grapple desperately for order, but as of yet there is none to be found.

Queen Bee vanishes and returns a short while later with a shock blanket, which she presses close around the shoulders of Elise, who shakes apart in Chat Noir's arms, completely catatonic. The Bee looks like she wants to say something, but she can't find the words and so she crosses her arms and returns to Ladybug's side.

"It's done, Ladybug," Ryuko says. "It's over."

"Yes," she agrees all the while thinking, as Queen Bee tries to quell her shaking, that really, it's just beginning.

* * *

It's past midnight, and Elise has been free of Hawkmoth's control for twelve hours. At first Marinette had gone home, held her parents in her arms - well, she did her best to hold her dad, but he did most of the heavy lifting there. There had been more than a few tears shed, that she wasn't ashamed to admit. She fell asleep on the sofa, in their cozy little home above the bakery, wrapped tight in her mother's arms.

"_My mother died, you know."_

It's this that has her eyes peeling back open hours later, to stare at the ceiling. Three days worth of fighting, and in the end all it took was someone reaching out. She sighs and leads out into the city again with a shudder. Her mind his chaotic and racing, but she knows where she's going.

What she doesn't expect is to find Chat there when she arrives. She lowers herself onto the roof ledge beside him but he shows no sign of knowing that she's there, even when she says, "Elise looks - comfortable." That's the best she can come up with.

The woman is laid in a hospital bed in a room crammed full of loved ones. A man who looks like her husband holds her hand tight, and in amongst them all Elise looks like a corpse. An unearthly sort of pale and breakable, drained of life. But she does look comfortable.

A warm summer's breeze drifts on by and makes goosebumps erupt along her skin, even beneath the suit. She wills it away but like the image of Luka's dead body, it doesn't leave. She went and found Luka, by the way. He was drinking a beer and helping his tearful sister compose a new song for her band, Kitty Section, presumably to distract her from the lingering destruction all around. Juleka had offered her to join them but Marinette had taken one look at Luka's warm, living face and bolted for the door, ready to be sick.

From there she wandered Paris, through places that hours ago had looked like a war zone, and now looked - well, not _unlike_ a war zone, but certainly not the one it had been. Had she been stronger, she would have done a better job of the fixing up, but the Cure's power was dependent upon how much energy Marinette had in her, and at the time she had next to none. Finally, she had bit the bullet and headed towards the hospital. It wasn't the same one that the nightmare had begun in, thank Tikki, but it still made her nervous.

Chat Noir, already there when she arrived, was yet to speak a word.

"How're you doing, Chaton?"

He swallows; his Adam's apple bobs. "I'm alive."

"Yes," she agrees. "That was - Well done, Chat. You were so - What you did there was amazing."

He doesn't acknowledge the compliment in any way. "You were right when you said we should think outside the box." He may still be alive, his heart may beat, but his voice and eyes are lifeless and this worries her.

Try as she might, she can't draw a single other word from him all night, and so their vigil over Elise Bisset's bedside is spent in silence.

When the clocks chime four o'clock in the morning and Elise is long since asleep, Marinette realises that Chat too is beginning to fall asleep where he sits, so she forces him home and to bed. She gets back to her own bedroom, warm and familiar, and not something she ever expected she would see again, half an hour later.

She's asleep before her head hits the pillow, never knowing that she wouldn't see hide nor hair of Chat Noir again for weeks.

* * *

"Ladybug, I -"

Alya slinks the chain of the Fox around her fingers, remarkably subdued. She hasn't said it yet, but Marinette knows what's coming. They're meeting so Alya can hand the Miraculous back over, but this is no routine exchange.

"I'm sorry, Ladybug, I can't - I just can't." She nods, fulling expecting this, and takes the golden chain from her friend's quaking hand. "I - I -"

"Thank you for your service, Alya. I..." But Marinette doesn't know what to say either. When Alya's phone starts buzzing she fumbles for it and her face changes.

"You - That's my friend calling, Ladybug, I - "

"Go. Talk to her."

Alya needs no more prompting, and as she turns and walks away Marinette feels a crevice open between them. It's Lila Rossi on the other end of the phone, she knows.

Kim all but throws his Miraculous at her, the first chance he gets. He's making jokes that don't land and nonsensical quips all his way out of the park, and afterwards Marinette doesn't see him for two weeks. Max tells her that he lives at the pool now, pushing himself to his limit every night and going back for more when the sun rises.

"It's like he thinks he can drown any memory of Mourning Star," he tells her. "N-Not that I remember much. I mean..."

When she doesn't see Queen Bee for a month she thinks that's another wielder who's thrown in the towel, but then a night watching over the city from the Eiffel Tower is interrupted by the sudden, jarring presence of her blonde haired team mate.

"Ladybug," she says. "It's good to see you."

"You too, Bee." Marinette watches as Chloe settles beside her. She looks back on form; her comb is neatly nestled amidst a head of perfect golden hair but she knows that Chloe has been having her father shell out hundreds of euros a session on a world class psychiatrist and that only last week she had scratched a bloody line down Sabrina's face in her sleep, gripped in the midst of a nightmare. (Marinette has them too, but she does her best to cope.)

"No one else is here?" Chloe asks, and Marinette thinks that at some point she has to take the Bee back; Chloe isn't a permanent wielder yet.

"Nope. Just the two of us. Roi Singe gave the Monkey up. Rena Rouge as well."

Alya has abandoned her in both lives, as it happens. She spends her days now swaddled by the comforting lies Lila whispers into her ear. It must be nice, Marinette thinks, to have someone who will do that for you.

"Are you okay, Bee?"

Chloe's jaw drops, she blinks, and for a moment Marinette can see the vulnerability; the scared teenage girl Mourning Star left behind. Then the mask is back in place and she smirks.

"What, me? I'm _fine_, Ladybug. I'm _Chloe Bourgeois._"

"Yes you are, Queen Bee," Marinette agrees, looking back out over the city with a small smile. "Yes you are."

* * *

Carapace is the next to quit, not that she can blame him; memories of crushing concrete and darkness stay with her even now, and then Pegase follows suit. Both are apologetic as they break the news to her, but they needn't be. She understands. If she could escape into music or computers, she would do it too.

Ryuko remains, and Marinette had expected that she would. Kagami had nerves of steel anyway, and like Marinette, like Chloe as well, she felt that she had something to prove to someone that neither Turtle nor Horse did. Marinette had known that Ryuko would remain, and she was grateful. Viperion did too, because he remembered none of the battle. Had he fought in it, he might have quit as well.

Or maybe not.

"Marinette!" Luka is at her loft door, Kagami hanging around below. He's stuck his head into her room, like a Diglett, and is staring at her. From her chaise lounge, where she is curled up in a ball, she stares back.

"What do you want, Luka?"

"We're going for lunch," he says. "You're coming with us."

"Oh, am I?" she asks, raising an eyebrow half-heartedly.

"_Yes_." Kagami's voice is firm, and Luka just smiles and waits for her to move, which she does after another minute of silent protest.

"Okay, fine," she says. "But I'm going to complain the whole time."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Ocean Eyes. Now move it! I'm starving; a growing boy!" Yes, you are now, she thinks.

Alya is gone, and so is Nino, with her. Max too, Kim as well, and more so than ever the rest of her class, but Marinette is not alone.

* * *

One thing still worries her.

She hasn't seen Chat Noir since the night it all ended. (Come to think of it, she hasn't seen Adrien either.) He doesn't reply to her messages or show up on her yoyo GPS and citizens have noticed that the hero is absent. At the same time, they note that Adrien Agreste hasn't left his father's cold, echoing mansion in weeks. Somewhere between these two facts lies a truth that Marinette has often wondered over the last few years, and inevitably she makes the connection.

Oh.

Akumas are beginning to crop up again, though none nearly as serious as Mourning Star, and she needs her partner back at her side but he isn't showing up to help her fight them. She thinks that Adrien Agreste is Chat Noir. So it's him that she delivers her ultimatum to.

"Where I... _am_, they've assigned us all a therapist," she says, perched on his windowsill one night.

He watches her out of black eyes and doesn't speak, but she knows. Now that she's here, oh,_ she knows_. It's him. Adrien is Chat, Chat is Adrien. He watches her now with a thousand yard stare.

"Do you have a therapist?" No answer. "If you don't get one I'll have to do something." She doesn't specify what; she hasn't _told_ him that she knows, but even in his current catatonic state he goes paler. The threat is there now, in the back of his mind. "Would you like a maracon? Take a few." She holds out the box in her hands and after a moment, he takes one, then another. She smiles kindly. "You know how to find me, Adrien."

Then she swings off to her second stop of the night.

Their job isn't an easy one, but she thinks she understands it better all the time. Adjusting the box of pastries under her arm, she puts on a smile and knocks on the door in front of her. The sun sets over the City of Light as Elise Bisset opens the door to her home, and allows Ladybug inside.

* * *

"You've gotta get down to the subway," Chloe barks in Marinette's ear. "The Conductor managed to find the entrance and he's stolen a carriage full of screaming morons who didn't run when I _goddamn told them to_ -"

"I'm on my way, Bee," Marinette says. "See you soon." She cuts the connection before she gets a headache.

"_Ladybug_."

A voice she had thought she would never hear again shatters the momentary silence. "Hey, Chat."

"I found a therapist. Been seeing him a few weeks now."

"Good boy." Her lips are pursed, hands on her hips, and she stares at him. He looks healthier. Happier. Nervous, sure, to be facing her again after so long, but...

_But_.

It's him. Chat Noir, in the flesh and ready to go.

"Are you with me?" she asks.

"Always."

And her heart soars. "That's more like it! Now come on. Hawkmoth's still out there, and in the more immediate future, an akuma calling himself The Conductor has stolen a subway car, along with all the people in it. Queen Bee's going to kill us if we're late."

His grin isn't what it used to be, but it's been so long since she saw one from him that it blinds her, and he says, "Well then My Ladybug... I'll race you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it! That's the story of Mourning Star, told for your reading consumption. Thank you all. Your kudos and comments warm my cold, cold heart <3


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